How Have Changing Patterns of Patronage and Consumption Affected the Creation of Works of Art?

2.two Media Effects Theories

Learning Objectives

1. Identify the basic theories of media furnishings.
2. Explain the uses of various media furnishings theories.

Early on media studies focused on the use of mass media in propaganda and persuasion. Nevertheless, journalists and researchers presently looked to behavioral sciences to assist figure out the issue of mass media and communications on club. Scholars have developed many dissimilar approaches and theories to figure this out. You lot can refer to these theories as you research and consider the media's effect on culture.

Widespread fear that mass-media messages could outweigh other stabilizing cultural influences, such every bit family and customs, led to what is known as the direct effects model of media studies. This model assumed that audiences passively accepted media messages and would exhibit predictable reactions in response to those letters. For case, post-obit the radio circulate of War of the Worlds in 1938 (which was a fictional news report of an alien invasion), some people panicked and believed the story to be truthful.

Challenges to the Direct Furnishings Theory

The results of the People's Pick Report challenged this model. Conducted in 1940, the study attempted to gauge the furnishings of political campaigns on voter choice. Researchers found that voters who consumed the most media had more often than not already decided for which candidate to vote, while undecided voters generally turned to family unit and community members to help them decide. The report thus discredited the directly effects model and influenced a host of other media theories (Hanson, 2009). These theories do not necessarily requite an all-encompassing picture of media effects but rather work to illuminate a item aspect of media influence.

Marshall McLuhan's Influence on Media Studies

During the early 1960s, English professor Marshall McLuhan wrote two books that had an enormous effect on the history of media studies. Published in 1962 and 1964, respectively, the Gutenberg Milky way and Understanding Media both traced the history of media technology and illustrated the means these innovations had changed both private behavior and the wider culture. Understanding Media introduced a phrase that McLuhan has become known for: "The medium is the message." This notion represented a novel take on attitudes toward media—that the media themselves are instrumental in shaping man and cultural experience.

His bold statements well-nigh media gained McLuhan a great deal of attention as both his supporters and critics responded to his utopian views about the ways media could transform 20th-century life. McLuhan spoke of a media-inspired "global village" at a fourth dimension when Cold State of war paranoia was at its superlative and the Vietnam War was a hotly debated subject. Although 1960s-era utopians received these statements positively, social realists found them cause for scorn. Despite—or perhaps because of—these controversies, McLuhan became a pop culture icon, mentioned frequently in the goggle box sketch-one-act plan Express mirth-In and actualization as himself in Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall.

The Internet and its accompanying cultural revolution have made McLuhan's bold utopian visions seem like prophecies. Indeed, his piece of work has received a great deal of attention in recent years. Analysis of McLuhan's work has, interestingly, not changed very much since his works were published. His supporters point to the hopes and achievements of digital engineering and the utopian state that such innovations promise. The current critique of McLuhan, still, is a bit more revealing of the land of modern media studies. Media scholars are much more numerous now than they were during the 1960s, and many of these scholars criticize McLuhan's lack of methodology and theoretical framework.

Despite his lack of scholarly diligence, McLuhan had a great bargain of influence on media studies. Professors at Fordham University have formed an association of McLuhan-influenced scholars. McLuhan's other bang-up achievement is the popularization of the concept of media studies. His piece of work brought the idea of media effects into the public arena and created a new fashion for the public to consider the influence of media on culture (Stille, 2000).

Calendar-Setting Theory

In contrast to the extreme views of the direct effects model, the agenda-setting theory of media stated that mass media determine the issues that concern the public rather than the public's views. Under this theory, the issues that receive the most attention from media go the bug that the public discusses, debates, and demands action on. This means that the media is determining what issues and stories the public thinks about. Therefore, when the media fails to address a particular issue, it becomes marginalized in the minds of the public (Hanson).

When critics merits that a particular media outlet has an calendar, they are drawing on this theory. Agendas can range from a perceived liberal bias in the news media to the propagation of cutthroat capitalist ethics in films. For example, the agenda-setting theory explains such phenomena every bit the rise of public opinion confronting smoking. Before the mass media began taking an antismoking stance, smoking was considered a personal wellness issue. By promoting antismoking sentiments through advertisements, public relations campaigns, and a variety of media outlets, the mass media moved smoking into the public loonshit, making it a public wellness issue rather than a personal wellness issue (Dearing & Rogers, 1996). More recently, coverage of natural disasters has been prominent in the news. Nonetheless, as news coverage wanes, so does the general public's involvement.

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Through a variety of antismoking campaigns, the health risks of smoking became a public agenda.

Quinn Dombrowski – Weapons of mass destruction – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Media scholars who specialize in agenda-setting research written report the salience, or relative importance, of an issue and then attempt to understand what causes information technology to be important. The relative salience of an consequence determines its identify within the public agenda, which in turn influences public policy creation. Calendar-setting research traces public policy from its roots as an agenda through its promotion in the mass media and finally to its final form equally a law or policy (Dearing & Rogers, 1996).

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Practitioners of the uses and gratifications theory written report the means the public consumes media. This theory states that consumers use the media to satisfy specific needs or desires. For example, you may savor watching a show like Dancing With the Stars while simultaneously tweeting near it on Twitter with your friends. Many people use the Internet to seek out entertainment, to find data, to communicate with agreeing individuals, or to pursue cocky-expression. Each of these uses gratifies a particular need, and the needs decide the fashion in which media is used. By examining factors of different groups' media choices, researchers can determine the motivations backside media use (Papacharissi, 2009).

A typical uses and gratifications study explores the motives for media consumption and the consequences associated with use of that media. In the instance of Dancing With the Stars and Twitter, you are using the Internet equally a way to be entertained and to connect with your friends. Researchers accept identified a number of common motives for media consumption. These include relaxation, social interaction, entertainment, arousal, escape, and a host of interpersonal and social needs. Past examining the motives behind the consumption of a particular grade of media, researchers can better sympathise both the reasons for that medium'south popularity and the roles that the medium fills in society. A study of the motives behind a given user's interaction with Facebook, for case, could explain the office Facebook takes in club and the reasons for its appeal.

Uses and gratifications theories of media are often practical to contemporary media issues. The analysis of the relationship between media and violence that you read well-nigh in preceding sections exemplifies this. Researchers employed the uses and gratifications theory in this example to reveal a nuanced set of circumstances surrounding trigger-happy media consumption, as individuals with aggressive tendencies were drawn to fierce media (Papacharissi, 2009).

Symbolic Interactionism

Some other normally used media theory, symbolic interactionism, states that the self is derived from and develops through man interaction. This ways the style you act toward someone or something is based on the significant you have for a person or thing. To effectively communicate, people use symbols with shared cultural meanings. Symbols can be constructed from just well-nigh annihilation, including textile goods, education, or even the way people talk. Consequentially, these symbols are instrumental in the evolution of the self.

This theory helps media researchers better empathize the field considering of the important role the media plays in creating and propagating shared symbols. Because of the media's power, it tin can construct symbols on its own. By using symbolic interactionist theory, researchers tin can look at the means media affects a society'due south shared symbols and, in turn, the influence of those symbols on the individual (Jansson-Boyd, 2010).

1 of the ways the media creates and uses cultural symbols to bear upon an individual'southward sense of cocky is advertising. Advertisers piece of work to give certain products a shared cultural pregnant to make them desirable. For example, when yous see someone driving a BMW, what exercise y'all call back well-nigh that person? You may assume the person is successful or powerful because of the car he or she is driving. Ownership of luxury automobiles signifies membership in a sure socioeconomic grade. Every bit, technology visitor Apple has used advertising and public relations to attempt to become a symbol of innovation and nonconformity. Use of an Apple product, therefore, may have a symbolic meaning and may send a particular bulletin near the production's possessor.

Media also propagate other noncommercial symbols. National and state flags, religious images, and celebrities gain shared symbolic meanings through their representation in the media.

Spiral of Silence

The spiral of silence theory, which states that those who concur a minority stance silence themselves to forestall social isolation, explains the role of mass media in the formation and maintenance of dominant opinions. Equally minority opinions are silenced, the illusion of consensus grows, and and so does social pressure to adopt the dominant position. This creates a self-propagating loop in which minority voices are reduced to a minimum and perceived pop stance sides wholly with the bulk opinion. For example, prior to and during Globe War II, many Germans opposed Adolf Hitler and his policies; nonetheless, they kept their opposition silent out of fear of isolation and stigma.

Because the media is one of the almost of import gauges of public opinion, this theory is oftentimes used to explain the interaction between media and public opinion. According to the spiral of silence theory, if the media propagates a particular opinion, and so that opinion will effectively silence opposing opinions through an illusion of consensus. This theory relates particularly to public polling and its use in the media (Papacharissi).

Media Logic

The media logic theory states that common media formats and styles serve equally a means of perceiving the world. Today, the deep rooting of media in the cultural consciousness means that media consumers demand engage for simply a few moments with a item television receiver program to understand that it is a news show, a comedy, or a reality show. The pervasiveness of these formats means that our civilisation uses the mode and content of these shows as ways to translate reality. For instance, think near a Idiot box news program that frequently shows heated debates betwixt opposing sides on public policy issues. This style of debate has become a template for handling disagreement to those who consistently watch this type of program.

Media logic affects institutions as well as individuals. The modern televangelist has evolved from the adoption of television set-fashion promotion past religious figures, while the utilization of television in political campaigns has led candidates to consider their concrete image equally an of import part of a campaign (Altheide & Snow, 1991).

Tillage Analysis

The cultivation assay theory states that heavy exposure to media causes individuals to develop an illusory perception of reality based on the nigh repetitive and consistent messages of a item medium. This theory most commonly applies to analyses of television because of that medium's uniquely pervasive, repetitive nature. Under this theory, someone who watches a great bargain of tv may form a picture of reality that does non correspond to actual life. Televised trigger-happy acts, whether those reported on news programs or portrayed on television dramas, for example, greatly outnumber violent acts that well-nigh people meet in their daily lives. Thus, an private who watches a great deal of television receiver may come up to view the globe as more violent and unsafe than information technology actually is.

Cultivation analysis projects involve a number of different areas for research, such every bit the differences in perception between heavy and lite users of media. To utilize this theory, the media content that an individual normally watches must be analyzed for various types of letters. Then, researchers must consider the given media consumer's cultural background of individuals to correctly determine other factors that are involved in his or her perception of reality. For example, the socially stabilizing influences of family and peer groups influence children's idiot box viewing and the fashion they procedure media messages. If an individual'due south family unit or social life plays a major role in her life, the social messages that she receives from these groups may compete with the messages she receives from television.

Key Takeaways

• The now largely discredited straight effects model of media studies assumes that media audiences passively take media messages and exhibit predictable reactions in response to those letters.
• Credible media theories generally do not give every bit much ability to the media, such as the agenda-setting theory, or requite a more agile part to the media consumer, such as the uses and gratifications theory.
• Other theories focus on specific aspects of media influence, such as the screw of silence theory's focus on the power of the majority stance or the symbolic interactionism theory'south exploration of shared cultural symbolism.
• Media logic and cultivation analysis theories bargain with how media consumers' perceptions of reality can be influenced by media messages.

Exercises

1. Media theories have a diversity of uses and applications. Research 1 of the post-obit topics and its issue on civilization. Examine the topic using at least ii of the approaches discussed in this section. And so, write a one-folio essay nigh the topic you've selected.

   • Media bias
   • Cyberspace habits
   • Television set's result on attention span
   • Advertising and self-paradigm
   • Racial stereotyping in film
2. Many of the theories discussed in this department were developed decades ago. Identify how each of these theories tin be used today? Do you think these theories are still relevant for modern mass media? Why?

References

David Altheide and Robert Snow, Media Worlds in the Postjournalism Era (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1991), 9–11.

Dearing, James and Everett Rogers, Agenda-Setting (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996), 4.

Hanson, Ralph. Mass Communication: Living in a Media World (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2009), fourscore–81.

Hanson, Ralph. Mass Communication, 92.

Jansson-Boyd, Catherine. Consumer Psychology (New York: McGraw-Colina, 2010), 59–62.

Papacharissi, Zizi. "Uses and Gratifications," 153–154.

Papacharissi, Zizi. "Uses and Gratifications," in An Integrated Approach to Communication Theory and Enquiry, ed. Don Stacks and Michael Salwen (New York: Routledge, 2009), 137.

Stille, Alexander. "Marshall McLuhan Is Back From the Dustbin of History; With the Cyberspace, His Ideas Again Seem Ahead of Their Time," New York Times, October xiv, 2000, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/ten/xiv/arts/marshall-mcluhan-back-dustbin-history-with-internet-his-ideas-again-seem-ahead.html.

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Source: https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/2-2-media-effects-theories/

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